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dame who kept the principal caravansary at Greenlaw, in Berwickshire, had the honour to receive under her roof a very worthy clergyman, with three sons of the same profession, each having a cure of souls; be it said, in passing, none of the reverend laity were reckoned powerful in the pulpit. After dinner, the worthy senior, in the pride of his heart, asked Mrs Buchan whether she ever had such a party in her house before. “Here sit I,” said he, “a placed minister of the kirk of Scotland, and here sit my three sons, each a placed minister of the same kirk.—Confess, Luckie Buchan, you never had such a party in your house before.” The question was not premised by any invitation to sit down and take a glass of wine or the like, so Mrs B. answered dryly, “Indeed Sir, I cannot just say that ever I had such a party in my house before, except once in the forty-five when I had a Highland piper here, with his three sons, all Highland pipers; and de’il a spring they could play amang them.

A few Scotch and English travellers being met together, an Englishman took it upon him to run down the Thistle, exclaiming against the empty boast of its motto; “Nemo me impune lacesset; when a Scotchman present observed, “The Thistle, sir, is the pride of the Scottish nation, but it is nothing in the mouth of an Ass.”